Stevie Wonder - Superstition

Description

"Superstition" is a popular song composed, produced, arranged, and performed by Stevie Wonder for Motown Records in 1972. It was the lead single for Wonder's album Talking Book, and released in many countries. It reached number one in the U.S. and number one on the soul singles chart.

The song was Wonder's first number-one single since "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973. Overseas, it peaked at number eleven in the UK during February 1973. In November 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song at No. 74 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song's lyrics are chiefly concerned with superstitions, mentioning several popular superstitious fables throughout the song, and deal with the negative effects superstitious beliefs can bring.

Jeff Beck was an admirer of Wonder's music, and Wonder was informed of this prior to the Talking Book album sessions. Though at this point he was virtually playing all of the instruments on his songs by himself, Wonder still preferred to let other guitarists play on his records, and he liked the idea of a collaboration with Beck, a star-in-the-making guitarist. An agreement was quickly made for Beck to become involved in the sessions that became the Talking Book album, in return for Wonder writing him a song. In between the album sessions, Beck came up with the opening drum beat. When Wonder heard the beat being played, he told Beck to keep playing while he improvised over the top of it. Wonder ended up improvising most of the song, including the riff, on the spot. In addition to the opening drum beat, Beck, together with Wonder, created the first rough demo for the song later that same day.

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